Centuries
by Bellicose Blue
Summary: A hundred stories in a hundred words. Alphabetical character drabbles, updated daily.
1. Alma

**A/N:** Yes, I'm starting a new project! Each section, not including A/Ns, is exactly 100 words, and there will be 100 chapters in all. This will be updated daily until it's finished.

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She was never one for celebrities. Her eye was drawn more to politics than fashion, crooked dealings than gossip. Young Alma Coin tracked the rise of handsome Coriolanus Snow while her peers giggled over whatever entertainment shows could be found so far underground. She absorbed all of his tactics, every single one, and when she made her own grab for power, she used them all. She wonders if he recognizes the way she's taken what made him powerful and twisted it even farther. She wonders if he damns her in the silence of his mansion. She wonders if he's impressed.


	2. Annie

She knows what they whisper behind her back, that she's crazy, that she'd lost whatever sanity she still clung to when Finnick died. She remembers the way she'd shattered when she'd first heard that her husband had been ripped to shreds by Snow's mutts. She'd swayed down to the floor and heard her voice spiral up into a scream.

"Real or not real?" she asks every day. The silence that follows is her only answer for a very long time, until one day a little boy with his father's famous sea-green eyes looks up at her and tells her, "Real."


	3. Atala

Every year, she gives the tributes the same advice. And every year, most of them ignore it. They're the ones who will starve to death because they can't find food or die because they didn't boil their water or freeze when the arena doesn't have a single twig of wood. They're the ones who will pull a muscle or sprain their leg the day before the Games because they were too busy trying to show off to the other tributes. She's long given up on trying to enforce anything: let them die as they will; they likely would have anyway.


	4. Beetee

**A/N:** I'm a quarter of the way done with these, and somehow the obscure characters are so much easier to write than the main ones.

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His arrogance is his biggest strength and his greatest downfall. It's hard not to grow a little prideful after a lifetime of people praising you for your inventions, for the various ways you've made the world easier, better. He grows cold, abrasive over the years, and he becomes more and more isolated. He's a genius with blood on his hands locked away in his handmade castle and sneering down at the barbarians as they storm the gate, but he'll remain strong until the bitter end. He didn't electrocute a bunch of kids just to get crushed beneath the Capitol's heel.


	5. Blight

**A/N:** I'm really pleased with this one.

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He's not much. Blood rains down on his skin and it feels like victory, like absolution rinsing away all his sins. It's just as hot and sticky as he remembers from his Games, where he'd taken his axe and split open the emaciated bodies of children like he was splitting a tree. He can feel that old bloodlust, so carefully locked away behind layers of blind horror, begin to grow. He looks around fruitlessly for his allies, fingers aching to swing, to _kill_. Then he hits the forcefield.

He's not much. He wasn't much. It doesn't really matter either way.


	6. Boggs

He's the perfect little soldier, isn't he? Loyal to the end and viciously competent. It's no wonder Coin trusts him, at least as much as a stone-cold snake like her could ever trust anyone. Bile surges in his mouth whenever he thinks of her plan, her secret, traitorous, _evil_ plan. He has a bubbly, brilliant little boy back in Thirteen. Would Coin sacrifice him, too? Would she make him slaughter his own son? But she knows he'll follow his orders to the death, no questions asked. It's just too bad that he's had a bit of a change of heart.


	7. Bonnie

Bonnie can't help but sneak glances at Katniss- _Katniss fucking Everdeen_ \- above the fire's feebly flickering flames. She looks younger without makeup and far less intimidating than she'd been with her bow aimed at Twill. And she's so- Bonnie pauses and frowns- _naïve_. Maybe it was silly to expect this girl, who can't be very much older than she herself is, to lead a rebellion. And maybe it's foolish to think that the district bombed to ruins years ago will be alive, let alone accepting of famished refugees. But there's no turning back now. They've come too far to fail.


	8. Bristel

She takes the coins Haymitch slips her and lets out a breath, running her finger over the raised letters on a coin and blinking hard at the tears threatening to rise. Gale's a damned good worker, or he was, before his back was carved raw and bloody from Thread's lash. Now she's not sure he'll survive the night. The oppression of the Capitol has always been condemned in undertones and double-meanings at the edges of seedy bars, but she's never seen such outright brutality before. Maybe it's time she joined the rebellion after all. Her footsteps fade in the snow.


	9. Brutus

In the end, his name became his destiny. He's still not sure why he was selected for the Games- he never excelled in any training subfields except for hand-to-hand combat- but he's glad for it. Sometimes he dreams about the way he'd blinked in the blinding sun atop his platform, staring down at the Cornucopia, the earth strewn with food and water and not a single weapon. He remembers watching the terror slowly dawn on the faces of the tributes surrounding him and feeling his face split into a smile. He lost himself that day, and he never came back.


	10. Buttercup

**A/N:** More than a third of the way done with writing these!

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He's just a cat. Just a matted, flea-bitten, ill-tempered cat with a squashed face and a strangled yowl. Just an ugly yellow cat with a thick pelt that absorbs every tear Prim sheds late at night when she's trying to keep her sobs quiet so her mother won't hear. Just a clever cat with big, swift paws that draw him out of the house when the first bombs begin to fall. Just a contrary cat with no real love toward Katniss but a sense of duty so profoundly strong that he'll keep her safe in Prim's memory. Just a cat.


	11. Caesar

**A/N:** I'm really pleased with this one, too.

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He plays his role so well that sometimes he forgets he's just acting. The smiles get a little too genuine, the flickers of emotion more spontaneous than they should be. He has to consciously remind himself to not get attached to any of these children, that within a matter of weeks, all but one will be dead. He knows he'll break a thousand times over if he starts to care. So he drowns himself in garish dyes and laughs with an audience about things they couldn't possibly understand and swallows whatever shards of humanity manage to escape. It almost works.


	12. Cashmere

"Where are you going, Cash?"

She can tell before she even looks up that Gloss already knows the answer. She puts the cap back on her carmine lipstick and glances over her shoulder. "Out, of course," she tells her brother in that too-playful tone, the one that means she's already retreating within herself. "You know me- I can _never_ miss a party!" She slips the invitation off the counter and struts off in her skintight golden gown. Later, she'll crush the paper between her fingers and remember her Games, think of Snow's neck in her hands. _Soon_ , she promises. _Soon._


	13. Castor

They _ruined_ his brother. He'll never forgive the Capitol, not when the rebellion sets the city aflame, not when chubby children with violet hair and gemstones inlaid into their cheeks are sent into the arena to die for their parents' sins, not ever. There is nothing they can possibly do to atone for their evils. Rage trickles like icy water down his arms, simmers in his heart, but he keeps his face blank by picturing the one thing that could ever even come close to bringing him some sort of peace: President Coriolanus Snow's slimy, bloodstained tongue on a platter.


	14. Cato

He talks about murder with stars in his eyes and laughter bubbling in his throat. Then he's actually in the arena, and driving swords into the backs of sobbing children is exhausting and filthy and kind of pathetic, but he keeps laughing because he _chose_ this and he's never chosen anything in his life and nobody pointed a gun and made him lunge for the stage and how dumb is he, really, and no fame or fortune could ever be enough to balance out how disgusted he feels inside, but it's all just a game and he has to win.


	15. Cecelia

"You'll come home, won't you, Mommy?" Lucy asks, her dark eyes big and solemn. She's the most reserved of the three children, but she clings to Cecelia every bit as fiercely as the others. Cecelia looks above Maggie's braids to meet the eyes of her husband at the edge of the crowd; he stands tall, proud, broken. She can practically hear his voice: _Don't lie to them_. But she has to, so she makes her voice bright and says, "Of course I will!" even as Peacekeepers pry them away, and she promises herself that they'll pay for touching her children.


	16. Chaff

He enters the arena with two hands. He exits with only one. They offer him a replacement, show him a wall covered in hands with self-heating skin and near-silent motors and even better dexterity than real ones, but he turns them down. At first it's a pride thing: he barely escaped the arena alive, damn right he's going to flaunt the only injury he has, the only reminder he has left. Then it's an honor thing: he refuses to be beholden to the Capitol.

He waves that stump defiantly in the air as Brutus drives an axe into his chest.


	17. Cinna

**A/N:** So I'm going to be away from a computer from now until Friday 6/3/16. I'll be posting all of the chapters for that timeframe today. This chapter is for 5/26/16.

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"I always channel my emotions into my work. That way, I don't hurt anyone but myself." But it's a lie, for his work will hurt people, will kill people, will set the world aflame. He'll electrify the nation's love of Katniss and pave the way for her glorious revolution, but it won't be a bloodless war, no. Sometimes you need to break a bone to set it. Sometimes you need to burn away the skin to kill the infection. Sometimes you need to make a few sacrifices for the greater good. Sometimes you need to martyr yourself for the cause.


	18. Claudius

**A/N:** See the author's note for Chapter 17. This chapter is for 5/27/16.

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Fame isn't all it's cracked up to be. No pretty girls flock to him at parties begging him to announce there's a feast by the Cornucopia like they do with Caesar and his godforsaken laugh. He doesn't have his own show. He scrambles to find work promoting Victor-inspired plates and false eyelashes and tacky jewelry during the off season in order to stay afloat. His apartment is small, his hair is only professionally styled for the Games, and his fans flock over to his coworker without a backward glance. No, he's glad to have this opportunity, but he wants _more._


	19. Clove

**A/N:** See author's note for Chapter 17. This chapter is for 5/28/16.

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She's looked into the abyss all her life. Sometimes she gazes into the blackness and wonders how deep the abyss goes, how long it would take her to hit the bottom. She doesn't think it would take very long at all. Not even the abyss is endless.

She finds herself creeping closer to the edge every day, toes encountering nothing but air beneath them. When she lunges forward to volunteer, she feels herself teeter, wavers forward, and finally pitches herself back to safety.

When her knife pierces the skin of a tribute for the first time, she lets herself fall.


	20. Coriolanus

**A/N:** See author's note for Chapter 17. This chapter is for 5/29/16.

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He loves beautiful things. The Capitol itself, crown jewel of Panem; and its people, draped in starlight and dreams; and his roses. Oh, he could spend the rest of his life tending to the greenhouse behind his mansion, coaxing life and beauty into buds that tremble exquisitely; dipped in blood, grown in blood. Human blood has such a resilience to it, doesn't it? It brings courage to the fearful and passion to the cold and rebellion to the contented. It's too bad so much of it will be wasted, but never mind that. This year's harvest will be especially beautiful.


	21. Cray

**A/N:** See author's note for Chapter 17. This chapter is for 5/30/16.

This drabble made me feel slimy to write, but even I won't humanize scum. Warning for disgustingness.

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He laboriously counts out coins into the trembling palm of yet another scrawny, tear-stained girl and sighs. Really, they should be thankful that he's generous enough to provide the youths of District Twelve with an easy way of earning some spare cash. He knows that if he weren't to offer these opportunities, then these desperate thugs would be mugging good, honest citizens on the streets, and isn't it his job as Head Peacekeeper to ensure the protection of the citizens of Panem? They'll get their money one way or another, so he might as well scratch two itches at once.


	22. Cressida

**A/N:** See author's note for Chapter 17. This chapter is for 5/31/16.

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The day she joins the rebellion, she holds a razor to her scalp and carefully shaves away every inch of hair. She is not beautiful, never has been, but her hair has always stopped people in their tracks. She pretends not to notice the way her tattooist snickers at her strange, unfashionable baldness as the man traces vines along her skin of her skull. "You're a brave one," he says with a trace of admiration, and she can't tell if he's talking about the way she barely flinches at the pain or how she's flouting convention. Either way, she smiles.


	23. D1F Tribute in the 50th Games

**A/N:** See author's note for Chapter 17. This chapter is for 6/1/16.

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It isn't fair. She knew the odds were against her- aren't they always? She knew that even her superior size and strength and speed and skill with half a dozen weapons didn't mean she would win, didn't even mean she'd outlast the Cornucopia. But she did, and she survived the volcanic eruption that wiped out half of her allies, and she killed the rest of them and set out hunting, and she still lost. She had the final boy- that smirking, bloodstained boy- on the ground with his stomach ruined and hands weaponless, but she still died. It isn't fair.


	24. D4M Tribute in the 70th Games

**A/N:** See author's note for Chapter 17. This chapter is for 6/2/16.

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"If you win, and Annie doesn't…" Mags shudders, and he can't quite pass it off as an aftershock of her stroke. "Finnick has more power than even he knows. You'll be so ruined you'll wish you'd died in the arena." He chokes on his confusion and his hatred but obeys and keeps Annie safe all the way up until his head's sliced clean off. But he gets his revenge in the end- his death breaks Annie, shatters what was left of her sanity, and Finnick's helpless to stop it. He loses the Games and his life, but he still wins.


	25. Dalton

**A/N:** See author's note for Chapter 17. This chapter is for 6/3/16.

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The outermost Districts are known for their songs. They echo in the mines of Twelve, in the orchards of Eleven, and especially in the lonely plains of Ten. His homeland is gentle and wide, all golden grasses and songs carried high on the wind. He remembers sitting on the porch and singing the day-end song loud enough that his neighbors over a mile away could hear. But Thirteen is gray and craggy and steep and cold and silent, as though the bombs that had destroyed its surface had stolen the voices of the people below. Sometimes he misses his home.


	26. Darius

**A/N:** Just got back from the trip! Still going to have shaky internet access for the next couple of days, so this chapter is for 6/4/16.

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All of his friends signed up for Peacekeeper jobs when they turned sixteen. He didn't really care about protecting the Capitol, but the money was better than he'd get in the mines, so he followed right along. Figures he'd get sent to the slums of Panem as his first assignment. But he eventually stops hating the dust-covered people of Twelve and grows to recognize in them a kind of kindred spirit, one shared by people united by fear and hope. He feels proud to call them his friends, but not his family. He's a District Two boy through and through.


	27. Delly

**A/N:** See previous author's note. This chapter is for 6/5/16.

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Life isn't very easy in District Twelve, even for a merchant's daughter, but she smiles anyway. She could have it so much worse, you know- that sweet Katniss Everdeen lost her father and has to provide for her family all on her own, and _everyone_ knows about the bruises on Peeta Mellark's face- so she's really quite lucky to be alive and safe. And sure, sometimes money gets tight and her parents scream and she sits on the floor of her closet with her hands over her ears, but she's got nothing to complain about, really. She's the lucky one.


	28. Dr Aurelius

**A/N:** Whoops, I totally forgot to upload this yesterday.

* * *

His job isn't the greatest. He's heard from the recent flood of refugees that other doctors, especially psychologists, are revered in the Capitol, that the best of the best earn salaries on par with entertainment figures like Caesar Flickerman. But Coin wants new agricultural techniques to feed her people and new surveillance patterns to watch over her people and new weapons to protect her people. It's not the kind of society where mental health is prized, but that's not all bad. They can't question him when he tells them Katniss wasn't in her right mind if they can't understand him.


	29. Effie

**A/N:** This one's for today, and the one before it is for yesterday.

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She sees more than people give her credit for. But she can't blame them for underestimating her- really, she wouldn't expect much from an ex-model with hair like a skyscraper and makeup as extravagant as her outfits, either. People think that because she looks and acts like a ditz that she is one, that her brain's empty, that she doesn't understand the grimy underbelly of the Capitol. But they forget that her father was a successful politician for a long time, and they forget that he taught her all he knew. She knows that sometimes it's better to be overlooked.


	30. Enobaria

**A/N:** Geez, I keep almost forgetting to upload these. To be fair, I just started a new project (actually an idea I had a while back and began to write but dropped it) and I'm so incredibly excited about it- I wrote _2000 words_ yesterday. No idea how long that enthusiasm'll last, but I'm completely in love with it.

* * *

Sometimes she remembers that infamous climax of her Games. Not the act itself (she's long blocked that out), but the aftermath: crouching on her hands and knees above a body with frozen eyes, blood dripping between her teeth to puddle on its chest. She remembers instinctively licking her lips and how the salt flooded her mouth, how she wanted to turn her head and vomit, but the cameras were watching, so instead she swallowed what was in her mouth and smiled crimson up at the sky. That the taste of warm, slick blood wasn't wholly repulsive will haunt her forever.


	31. Finnick

Surely they're not trying to be cruel. He smiles at the cameras (bares his teeth, really), tries to avoid looking down at the gold-tipped prongs in the corner of his vision, and wonders if they recall how he killed six children with this same trident barely a month ago. He picks at a stray spot of blood on the underside between shots, and it's only when his fingers start to bleed that he realizes they'd preserved its pristine, gory beauty with a layer of gloss so thick he can never reach the bottom. Now it's as Capitol as he is.


	32. Flavius

**A/N:** I'm almost 2/3 finished with these chapters and could not be happier. Keep an eye out over the next couple of days for my latest drabble project: 100 100-word drabbles dedicated solely to Glimmer. It's very fun. I'm very excited.

* * *

He is gold, pure and valuable. He is gold, glistening like the Capitol beneath the sun, all orange curls and dark purple lipstick. He is gold, beauty and wealth and fortune, envied by all, desired by all. He is gold, a happy childhood and a happier career spent with the things he loves most in the world, paints and powders that can transform a face into a thing to behold. He is gold, loyal to his country but also to his friends, generous with his time and his affections. He is not pyrite, brittle and bright and false. (He's not.)


	33. Foxface

**A/N:** This is the first chapter I've actually had to write the day of instead of uploading prewritten work, but only because the original one I was going to post was terrible.

* * *

She's outlasted everyone's expectations. Little girls with insignificant training scores and no knowledge of weapons don't normally last this long. But she's smarter, she's better. She sneers at the Careers with their brawn and their bloodlust, the way they throw their weight around and make stupid mistakes in their arrogance. She laughs at the clearly false love story the idiots from Twelve are spinning; just how well will that work out for them? No, she's the best of all of them: smart, sneaky, and survivalistic, hungry for her victory. It's just too bad she'll never be able to kill anyone.


	34. Fulvia

She hates being overlooked. Intuitively, she knows it's ridiculous; her ideas aren't always the best, and there's so many creative minds here in Thirteen that her help isn't always needed. She supposes she's just used to the way Plutarch would listen to every word she said and nod at the appropriate places and wait for her to finish before he praised her or began deconstructing her argument. But that doesn't change the way she bristles whenever Coin's too-light eyes skip over her like she's just part of the furniture, just the assistant. Someday they'll all have to listen to her.


	35. Gale

First there's a girl so strong, so unpolished he can't help but love her, but they're torn apart. She drowns before his eyes in a sea of makeup and flames until he can't even recognize her. And he loves her, oh, how he loves her, but his thoughts keep turning to the simple beauty and fragility of a white dress and strawberries. Maybe he's unfaithful, but what is there to be unfaithful to? But his secret dies in a storm of fire and smoke until all he can hear are screams. Maybe he just isn't meant to fall in love.


	36. Gamemakers

They are the most beautiful people in all of Panem. White uniforms conceal starbursts of tattoos and gemstones nesting in their veins, mingling with the honey of their blood. Wigs made entirely out of ribbons or heavy with glitter or a whole rainbow of colors tickle blue-painted cheeks and fall in crystalline eyes. Puffed lips painted silver and dotted with spikes smile at the richest of the rich over food so rich it's tasteless. And, of course, they are the only elites favored enough to watch over the nation's pride and joy: the arena. Who wouldn't want to be them?


	37. Glimmer

**A/N:** If you want more Glimmer-centric drabbles, I'm starting a new project in the same structure as this one. Working title is "make me your queen" and it'll probably be posted within the next couple of days; I'm still trying to decide if I want any order to the chapters or not.

* * *

She glides her hands over her lips, her throat, her chest. Air teases at the hem of her dress, if you could call it that, fluttering at the tops of her thighs, so tantalizingly high she can feel the crowd as a whole lean in closer, anything to get a glimpse of her. She licks her lips and tastes bile. The Capitol salivates at her feet, begging for her to come closer, to step off the edge of that stage and join them, to lose herself in their lust. _Soon_ , she thinks as the spotlight hits her and Glimmer disappears.


	38. Gloss

**A/N:** Whoops, almost forgot to upload this. The uploading of the Glimmer project has been pushed back a bit because I just got inspired to write a short series of Clato drabbles based on lines from the books and I've already written, like, five in the past hour. I have another, significantly longer Clato project that I'm about 8-9k or four-ish chapters into and also _incredibly_ excited about, but that probably won't be ready for a while because editing is hard and it needs a beta to tell it it's pretty. Also, I actually have to _write_ chapters for tomorrow and the day after since they're not all nice and prewritten, so they might be a little rough around the edges.

* * *

He doesn't mind the way they sell him. Sex is sex, even when it's with giggling, purple-cheeked girls with bird talons stitched to their fingertips or men with sickly green skin and crystalline eyes without pupils. He can shut off his mind as easily as he blinks, leaving just sly smiles behind. He knows his job. He knows just how much he owes the Capitol for their generosity, for the way they've protected him through the Games and beyond. He doesn't care what they do with him. But he sure as hell cares when they try to sell his sister.


	39. Goat Man

Life is hard, but he's made it all right. The life expectancy for miners isn't very long, so many trapped by accidents and debt and despair. But he made it out alive with enough money to keep himself afloat, to keep his head above the water, to survive and even thrive as his former classmates worked themselves to death. He never married, and his parents died long before from the same hacking cough all miners eventually acquire, but he isn't lonely. He has his goats for company, and he knows they care about him. They're the only ones that do.


	40. Greasy Sae

She's a little rough around the edges, but she'll be damned if she hasn't earned that right. Hell, it ain't every woman who can buck up and raise a family after her husband dies, and it certainly ain't every woman who can run one of the most successful businesses in the Hob. She's proud of her cooking skills, of her business savvy, and anyone who sneers down at her like they're better than her, like they ain't never been desperate, is sure going to regret it. She hasn't befriended all of Twelve's Peacekeepers with free meals for no reason, now.


	41. Greasy Sae's Granddaughter

**A/N** : I wrote this one forever ago and I'm still thrilled with it.

* * *

People treat her like a pet, like something a little less than human. She's special, they tell her, 'cuz she don't have to go to school no more and she'll never ever have to work in the mines. Grandma Sae is less circumspect. "You ain't smart like everyone else, girl," she tells her in a voice like rocks sliding down a mountainside, hoarsened from a lifetime living next to the mines. "But you're nice. And that's a damn rare trait to have now, when everybody's busy lookin' after themselves. You just keep up your niceness and you'll do all right."


	42. Haymitch

His alcoholism will kill him someday, he's sure of it. It's already killed forty-six boys and girls from Twelve during the span of his mentorship, all those gifts he was too drunk to deliver and sponsors he was too unconscious to charm. He can feel his body recoil with every sip of Ripper's liquor, the stuff that tastes like liquid fire, but he craves it, he _needs_ it. It makes him numb, and numbness is far more preferable to pain, to sorrow, to guilt. He's been in oblivion for so long that he's not sure he could survive waking up.


	43. Hazelle

She'll do anything to protect her family. She's born and bred to survive, and that's just what she'll do, no matter how many sleepless nights she spends scrubbing other people's laundry, no matter how many meals she skips so her children can have enough to eat for once, no matter the cost. She'll keep them alive even if it kills her.

She'll do anything to protect her family. But she sees the shadows in Gale's eyes, feels the tension crackling in the air like lightning poised to strike the heart of Panem, and knows she might already be too late.


	44. Homes

He knows she's lying when she talks about her secret mission, but he vouches for her anyway. Coin doesn't trust anyone, especially not symbolic figures who have rallied the entire country around them, so it's far-fetched to believe she would assign such a weighty task to Katniss. But Boggs trusts her- trusted her, he corrects himself, remembering how he'd seen the man's legs blown away by one of the Capitol's pods- and he'll follow his commander's orders to the grave. Can she do it? He's not sure, but that's not important. He's just a soldier. He has no opinions here.


	45. Jackson

**A/N:** I'm going off memory for a lot of these. Let me know if they're not the people I'm thinking of.

* * *

She's lying. Katniss Everdeen, darling of the whole goddamned country, is _lying_. Who in their right mind would ever give this girl, this broken, chaotic girl, any sort of power? Why would Boggs suddenly transfer clearance over to _her_? She tells herself she isn't jealous, she's just concerned for the safety of her- _her_ \- team, but yeah, it does sort of sting a little that the man she'd spent so long working with found her so incompetent, so unworthy of command that he spent his last dying breath changing everything. But she won't rebel, not yet. Her time will come.


	46. Johanna

She hates the Capitol, hates being afraid. They tried to make her fearful and obedient when they killed her whole entire family, her parents and her baby sister and her grandparents and even her estranged aunt that she hadn't seen in years. But that didn't change her brazen defiance of their demands, and now that they had no leverage, they'd had to leave her alone. Oh, how they must have laughed when they realized she was still trapped inside that arena, when they realized they could make her pay for all of her sins. Well, she'll see who's laughing now.


	47. Katniss

**A/N:** Whoops, forgot to upload this yesterday. To be fair, I was a little bit absorbed by this _insanely fluffy_ oneshot I just started- 4k in two days. I love it.

* * *

They won. They always do. Good always triumphs over evil just like it does in the storybooks, and everyone is always too busy celebrating the end of the war to mourn what they lost. But what the books leave out is that the triumph might be a long time in coming, that it might take a hundred years of bitter revolution to finally topple the corrupt government, that sometimes the people who promise an end to tyranny only want more of it. She doesn't feel triumphant, cloaked in righteous victory. She just feels tired. Where does she go from here?


	48. Lady

**A/N** : The chapter posted before this is for yesterday, since silly me got distracted with a new project again.

* * *

There's no room for beauty in this District of soot and starvation. It's too weak, too thin and frail to survive, like a flower withering in the snow. So she's kept for her usefulness, for her milk and the way she can forage scraps to survive. That's all she's good for. The ribbon her Prim tied around her neck is faded and fraying, its threads snapping one by one like ice cracking beneath heavy feet. Soon it will be fallen, and everyone will stop pretending she's anything more than she is: food, a resource, a bit of life. Nothing else.


	49. Lavinia

She was afraid of the dark when she was little. Big, scary monsters lurked in the shadowy spaces between machines where little hands could reach through and get torn off. The clattering of the machines provided a comforting buzz in her ears after a double shift, but her ears rang with snapping twigs and too-careful footsteps when she walked back home.

* * *

She's not afraid of the dark anymore. She's seen the darkest underbelly of the world, a pure-white building scrubbed daily of blood and screams, and she knows that the only real monsters are the ones behind the human-faced masks.


	50. Leeg 1

**A/N:** Forgot to upload yesterday (again), so this one's for today (6/28/16) and the prior one is for yesterday.

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Everything that her District has asked from her, she's given. She's surrendered her beliefs, her individuality, her innocence, _everything_ she has so that she might help keep them all safe. She's so young and _so_ good at fighting thanks to their generosity, and she's repaid them. She didn't think she had anything left to offer- her right leg? her gold-flecked eyes?- but apparently when they told her _your life is ours_ , they meant her family, too. Well, she hasn't turned them down this far, so she won't start now. She loves her sister, but this revolution is more than them.


	51. Leeg 2

If she were in the arena, a cannon would fire the instant that pod bursts and a dart finds her brain. A hovercraft would scoop up her corpse within minutes, and she'd be on her way home in a Capitol-crafted box. But she isn't, so instead her twitching body falls to the ground and shudders as the team of hardened professionals around her shout out curses and orders and prayers to the unhearing sky. It's not a glamorous death, not for the girl who's always been regarded as a lesser version of her sister, good but ultimately not good enough.


	52. Leevy

**A/N:** Over halfway finished!

* * *

She's known Katniss all her life, so it doesn't surprise her that the girl who was once her neighbor is now a worldwide sensation. Some people just have that way about them, that flicker of brilliance and passion and madness that marks them for future greatness, and Katniss certainly has that. She's proud of her friend, honestly. It's not every girl that escapes the crushing poverty of the Seam and, instead of wasting away with her wealth, devotes her life to making sure that everyone else has the opportunity to do the same. She'd follow this girl- her idol- anywhere.


	53. Lucia

**A/N:** Hit 6k on my happy ending soulmate au. Today is a good day.

* * *

She learns the art of cruelty at the knee of the Head Gamemaker. She learns through the tidbits of wisdom he occasionally tosses out like he throws away half-finished meals what makes the arenas tick, what conditions incite the most fear in tributes, what twists make the Capitol scream with pleasure. Nothing shocks her, nothing horrifies her any more. It's just a game. So when Snow presents her with a handful of berries and tells her to follow her mentor's footsteps, she smiles at the showmanship of the final move and bows her head in deference to the true master.


	54. Lyme

She's the furthest thing from a rebel. Complacent Lyme, mediocre Lyme, easygoing Lyme; even her Games were nothing special. Her victory celebrations were minimal, and she was never once asked to return to the Capitol, not for interviews, not for special appointments. Once she left the arena crowned in blood, everyone just forgot about her. It's not such a bad thing, really. She's seen where being a crowd-pleaser gets you: on your knees, high off your mind just to stay sane. She'd never been so happy to be seen as average. She's the last one they'll expect to turn traitor.


	55. Madge

**A/N:** If you're looking to see more of Madge, she does make an appearance in the ridiculously fluffy oneshot called _Cheap Shot_ that's going to be posted within the next day or so. It's absurd. Don't say I didn't warn you.

* * *

She likes strawberries and pretty dresses and boys with Seam-gray eyes, even when they sneer at her naïveté, even when they're focused half the time on the girl who might well be her only friend. It's just her luck that she'd fall for the one boy she can't possibly have, for he'll never love her and her father will never let him marry her even if he did. Pretty blond girls from the nice part of town don't go about marrying dirt-poor boys from the Seam, and they shouldn't be pining for what-ifs. So she swallows her heart and smiles.


	56. Mags

**A/N:** _Cheap Shot_ has been posted and I couldn't be happier.

* * *

She was there to see Snow rise but she won't be there to watch him fall. The thought doesn't bother her all that much, really. Eighty-odd years on this earth have left her with a bit more perspective, a bit calmer of a temperament than her fiery, rebellious peers who still bristle from old slights and ache to scorch away the past. She knows that the real enemy here isn't one another, the other Districts, or the privileged children of the Capitol, not even President Snow himself: it's the hard-eyed demons they see grinning back at them in the mirror.


	57. Martin

**A/N:** Martin gets about a third of a page's mention when Rue discusses the callousness of the Peacekeepers in Eleven, in case you'd forgotten like I had.

* * *

The man forces him down on the ground and aims his toy down at him. Martin always claps his hands whenever the Peacekeepers shoot those, the noise like the fireworks in the sky that they see when they play the Capitol's celebrations on television, and soon everyone else is cheering and some people are so excited to see it that they just fall right over and go to sleep. But no one's cheering this time, and he frowns as he spots his glasses dangling from the man's belt. He reaches for them, and that's the last thing he ever does.


	58. Marvel

He knows he's underwhelming, at best. The name his bright-eyed parents had given their first child doesn't really suit the person he's become: all jokes and no wit, all smirks and no seduction, all chatter and no ambition. But he's here now, and he can throw a spear pretty damn well, and he's got a pack of allies who have his back for now, and he just might have a shot at winning. If he can't impress them with his skills, maybe he can shock them with his depravity. He'll descend into hell if that's what it takes to survive.


	59. Mayor Undersee

**A/N:** This one's been waiting for a while, but I do like it.

* * *

He took this job for power. Why else? He's seen a hundred men and women scramble for a foothold, clawing at each other, yet almost always falling. But he, oh, he was successful. He managed to obtain more power than any other District Twelve citizen, enough to rival some of the Capitolites, and yet. And yet. It's still not enough, it'll never be enough, not until he holds the ashes of the Capitol in his hands and wears a crown of bones and laughs like blood splattering on the ground. He looks at the ground beneath him and keeps climbing.


	60. Maysilee

**A/N:** Just twenty more to write! The end is near!

* * *

She loves birds. She had a songbird of her own back at home, a tiny flitting thing that preened for morsels through the bars of its cage and crooned along with the sunrise. She used to sit beside it and watch it look longingly at the skies, ruffling its pretty little wings. "I understand," she'd whispered once, but she'd never let it go. She was selfish that way. And now she's regretting never releasing it, because a flock of candy-pink birds are skewering her through the heart right beside her gold mockingjay pin, and now they'll both never be free.


	61. Messalla

**A/N:** Goodness gracious, expect an awful lot of chapters in the next couple of days. I just realized that since I'm leaving on the 12th and won't get back until the 25th, I've got a _ton_ of chapters to write and post beforehand. I wrote three today and I've still got another six left to write before I dump them all on y'all this Monday, so here's to lots of stressed writing!

* * *

He's never cared much for fashion. Why bother wasting your money on something that will have already changed by the time you get your hands on it? But he's never liked to make waves, so he always used to follow trends just to fit in. Then Cressida shaved all of her beautiful hair off as a last laugh at the Capitol's capriciousness, so when he follows her into rebellion, he burns all of his wigs and covers his skin in so many unfashionable piercings that he jingles when he walks. It's funny how his new appearance makes everything feel _right_.


	62. Mitchell

**A/N:** Gonna try to finish both Morphlings today so that I can post the next three, or maybe I'll finish Peeta's father as well and I'll be able to post up to thirteen (!) today. If not, there'll be a lot of chapters going up tomorrow! Also, I was going to wait until I returned to start uploading a series of tiny Clato drabbles inspired by THG quotes called _Vainglory_ , but I'm so excited about it that I think I'll post the first one tonight.

* * *

The fumes must be doing something to his head, because he knows the net he's been trapped in is too high above the clearing for him to be drowning in the liquid below. But if it's a hallucination, it's certainly a convincing one. Scalding tar envelopes him in waves, coating his skin, slipping into his bloodstream through the scratches left by the barbs of the net, flooding his nose and mouth with thick black liquid, and he can't do anything to escape it because the waters have already closed above him. He only realizes it's real when he stops screaming.


	63. Morphling Female

**A/N:** Got the next three done! This chapter is for 7/11/16.

* * *

What a nice boy this Peeta is. She's glad she saved his life, glad she let the blood-fallen-in-the-dust brown monkey sink its fangs into her chest instead of his. He's got his girl to go home to, and she- she has her silver-as-a-stormcloud needles. She tries to think of some way to repay him for his kindness and oh, there's some rose-red paint on her chest. She can't weave pretty words the way he can, but she can swirl a crimson-petaled flower on his cheek, and his tears are all the gratitude she needs before the sky turns moon-behind-the-clouds black.


	64. Morphling Male

**A/N:** This chapter is for 7/12/16.

* * *

He likes pretty things: dust motes floating in a ray of sunlight, needles filled with numbing bliss, birdsong on a warm summer day, glass balls with paper snow at the bottom, gold shaped like a bird in flight, his district partner happy and alive with painted flowers blossoming from each syringe bruise on her arms, a circle of friends all holding hands, an ocean as blue as the sky, silver slicing through the air like a song, red cuts smiling up at him, paint leaking into the water like someone left their palette overturned, darkness's familiar tug at his eyelids.


	65. Mr Everdeen

**A/N:** This chapter is for 7/13/16.

* * *

When he sings, even the birds stop to listen. But songs won't put food on the table for his family, won't heal the bitterness and brokenness from a thousand years of war, won't spark a revolution for change. Who has time for beauty? Not him, not when the mines are clamoring for workers and his daughters are staring at the hollows in their cheeks and the world is moving far too fast for him to keep up. So he stops singing for the mockingjays to echo, stops humming old tunes under his breath, and when the mine explodes, he stops.


	66. Mr Mellark

**A/N:** Today's the day! All right, so I've got nine to post right now, two to write, and then another four to post before the end of the day. Get psyched, y'all. This one's for 7/14/16.

* * *

Where did everything go wrong? He was in love with his best friend and they were going to rule the world together. Now his best friend is gone, transformed by grief into something else entirely, and she isn't his, she was never his. No, the woman he married and the woman he loves are not the same person, no matter how much he wishes it were, and it's only cruel to compare his wife to his childhood sweetheart when everyone knows who he'd rather be with. But he's long accepted it. Some things- some _people_ \- just aren't meant to be.


	67. Mrs Everdeen

**A/N:** This is for 7/15/16.

* * *

Go on, judge her. Everyone else already does. She's not so lost to the world that she doesn't hear the mutterings around her, feel the stares stick to the back of her neck like coal dust she can never wipe clean. She's beyond caring. There's nothing they can say, no condemnation they can spew that will hurt her more than the loss of the man she'd loved. So go ahead, spit at her feet and push her down into the dirt like the filth she is. But you'll never hurt her, for you'll never be as cruel as life itself.


	68. Mrs Mellark

**A/N:** This is for 7/16/16.

* * *

When she sees that Everdeen brat fishing around in her garbage like some sort of mongrel- _god,_ she sees red. She works too damn hard to see that eyesore of a girl scattering trash about her lawn, and sure, maybe the filth reminds her a little too much of that harlot who'd nearly seduced her own husband away. It just figures that on such a wretched day, her good-for-nothing son goes and ruins another loaf of bread. She hits him almost absentmindedly and then stands there for a while, staring at the leaping flames and wondering where everything went wrong.


	69. Mrs Undersee

**A/N:** This is for 7/17/16.

* * *

She played a concert in the Capitol once, back when she was young and beautiful and her fingers didn't shake and her head didn't hurt so much that she spent most of her days lying in bed with the room spinning. They applauded after every song and sent her back home with the kind of gushing praise that only people completely unfamiliar with the craft can give. Now she sits in the silence of the empty house and plays the piano in her dreams, her fingers gliding across ivory keys to choose only the most perfect notes all for herself.


	70. Octavia

**A/N:** This is for 7/18/16.

* * *

She loves mice more than anything in the world, more than makeup, even more than clothes. She'd dot her face with tiny whiskers if those hadn't gone out of style years ago. She remembers the tiny mice she'd kept back in the Capitol, her sweet little pets who'd curled into her neck at night. There's no pets and no mice here in Thirteen, just massive rats with mean snouts and beady eyes that watch her hungrily. She thinks of her bombed-out apartment and the three tiny corpses buried somewhere beneath the ash in their bejeweled cage and starts to cry.


	71. Paylor

**A/N:** This is for 7/19/16.

* * *

 _Oh, Alma, why'd you have to let power corrupt you? It was always about more, more, more, wasn't it?_ she thinks bitterly. _Did you ever love me, or was that just another way to assure my loyalty?_ She's torn from gazing at an old photograph (two women, different in age and skin and hair and eyes, but they've got the same soul in their smile) when someone knocks at the door and calls, "Madam President, they're ready for you." She brushes a finger over the pale woman's frozen face and tosses the picture into the fire. She doesn't look back.


	72. Peacekeepers

**A/N:** This is for 7/20/16.

* * *

Young men and women from Two, their prospects at victory in the Games snatched away by the very best, line up the day after the Reaping to sign up for a new way to bring glory to their District, to honor their Capitol. Oh, a few down-on-their-luck Capitolites will sign up too, but they're so soft and unadjusted to violence that the vast majority will wash out. No, it's the children with the resolve of the mountains they grew up surrounded by that will take on this most noble job. It's a pitiless job, but they're not the merciful sort.


	73. Peeta

**A/N:** This is for 7/21/16.

* * *

At night, he counts stars.

The stars are ice and fate and oblivion and eternity. They spread across the night sky, shining like little chips of diamond scattered beneath the heel of an uncaring god. They vanish before the wrath of the day, only to reappear behind his eyelids whenever he blinks. They form constellations like the bruises that cover his body, and he hopes that someone will find him as beautiful as the stars.

He should hate them, but he doesn't. (He shouldn't hate himself, but he does.)

He will never be able to count them all.

He counts.


	74. Peeta's Brothers

**A/N:** This is the last of this morning's nine! The other four will be up this evening. This one is for 7/22/16.

* * *

They stand stiffly in the audience, one in the adults' section with their parents and the other with a group of eighteen-year-olds from the Seam, and watch as their baby brother slowly scales the stairs. They know right away that no one's going to volunteer for him, that whatever fluke of compassion that managed to save the little Everdeen girl won't suddenly flare up in the only eligible brother. He's just being pragmatic, really. Peeta's strong and good at talking. Maybe he'll have a chance. They swallow their hypocrisy and lies and watch their brother march off to his death.


	75. Plutarch

**A/N:** Now for the last four of today! This is for 7/23/16.

* * *

The tides of public opinion are shifting, so, ever the opportunist, he follows. He'll still assure the President of his loyalty, of course. He'll have to be a trusted member of the inner circle in order to propose his plan to have the Victors be reaped for the Quarter Quell, after all. And once he does that, he'll sit back and wait for the tributes to escape his clever little arena, and the rebellion will be so thankful for his support they'll give him some prominent title in their new government. Yes, it's a good time to be a Gamemaker.


	76. Pollux

**A/N:** This is for 7/24/16.

* * *

The Avoxes are not as quiet as their owners might expect. In the bowels of the city, buried under tons of concrete, hums echo through the pipes and whistles ring through the mazes, a chorus of trilling _hello there_ s and high-pitched _watch your step_ s and a few sharp, grating notes that mean _fuck the Capitol_. But their whistle-songs are nothing like speaking, like holding a conversation where gestures are used for emphasis instead of speech. But he doesn't warble out a complaint, just smiles a little, for he has the chance to make sure that nobody becomes mute ever again.


	77. Portia

**A/N:** This is for 7/25/16.

* * *

There are worse legacies. To be the stylist to one-half of the new Victors is an achievement in its own right, to be the other half of the team that designed the most spectacular clothes the world has ever seen is nothing short of a miracle. She thinks of the pride she'd felt as the crowd roared when she took the stage, of the quiet sense of accomplishment that followed every new success, and clings to the warmth of her flame-filled memories as the Peacekeeper forces her to her knees and digs the barrel of a gun into her skull.


	78. Posy

**A/N:** And this is the final one before I leave! Depending on computer access, I might be able to post other stories (namely upload more chapters of _Vainglory_ ), but I won't be adding any new chapters of this until I return. This is for 7/26/16.

* * *

The television is still on when she sneaks out of their tiny bunker in District Thirteen. Onscreen, hundreds of children are gathered outside of the President's mansion, chubby cheeks stained red by the cold. They're the most beautiful children she's ever seen, all purple skin and feathered dresses and shiny lipstick. She inches closer to the screen as the camera focuses on a little girl clad in bright pink- her favorite color- reaching up to pluck a parachute from the air. Posy will never forget how the girl's smile hung in the air as the gift in her hands exploded.


	79. Primrose

**A/N:** I said that the previous chapter was the last one until I left. I lied. This one's the last one for real... probably. Also, fourteen chapters in one day?! Crazy. Even crazier, we're now past the 3/4ths point!

* * *

She isn't a little girl any more. She's a healer, and a worker, and a survivor. She can't fight like Katniss can, can't rally the Districts around her like Katniss can, but she can help the cause in her own way. Every child comforted, every misery eased, is just one more way she can repay the debt she owes her sister for saving her life when their father died and every day after that. But she doesn't need her sister's help any more. Someday her sister will realize she's all grown up. Someday her sister will be proud of her.


	80. Purnia

**A/N:** Back to regular updates! Just six more to write and then onto the next project!

* * *

Well, it's one thing to enforce the rules, but it's a whole other thing to beat a boy to death for a crime no one even thinks is illegal anymore. She might not be from Twelve, the land of soot and poverty, but she's been here long enough to know that something's rising up, crawling beneath their skin and flashing behind their seemingly-obedient eyes. She can't imagine how the Peacekeepers- how _she_ \- will be expected to crack down on them once the rebellion boils over. Least she can do is save this boy, even if it's just prolonging his execution.


	81. Racketeer

**A/N:** Oh, now we're reaching the ones that I wrote forever ago! Five left to write!

* * *

A rat-faced man slips among the crowd at the Reaping, muttering in people's ears about odds and probabilities and there's no way they could lose money just guessing someone's age, right? If they get it right- and of course they will- they'll triple the money they just handed over to him. Most quickly agree or politely turn him down, but there are a few that spit at his feet and tell him he ought to be ashamed. He smiles so goddamn big they can see all of the rotted teeth in his mouth and adds their names to a list.


	82. Ripper

**A/N:** I was so confused as to why this wasn't showing up and then I realized I never uploaded it, silly me!

* * *

She turns a blind eye to the way Haymitch staggers with increasing frequency to her stand at the Hob. His eyes are glazed more often than not, and don't think she hasn't noticed how his hands tremble when he goes just a bit too long between visits. But she keeps selling him the white liquor he demands. How else is a one-armed woman with no family to support her going to survive in the unforgiving land of Panem? This is the only way for her, and if it means selling customers into alcoholism, well, so be it. It's just business.


	83. Romulus

**A/N:** Yesterday's chapter was actually posted yesterday (I didn't forget, I swear!), but FF didn't bump it up. Hope it works better today!

Also, this dude is Head Peacekeeper Thread, in case you didn't recognize the name, but we're keeping with the first name trend here.

* * *

Violence begets violence. It's a simple maxim, and one that he spends his life following. If he can quell one rebellion today, he's saved them from another three tomorrow. Of course, you need some violence to achieve stability, for a people born and sustained by violence will only listen to it, not the logical reasoning of civilized people. He accepts this contradiction, embraces it, even, and his ability to proceed despite seeming incompatibilities has made him one of the most powerful men in all of Panem. After all, it's not every Peacekeeper that has the ear of President Snow himself.


	84. Rooba

**A/N:** This one was supposed to go up yesterday (8/1/16)- sorry about that! I'm glad this project is nearly completed; I'm so busy!

* * *

In a District where the hardest workers freeze to death without even a handful of the coal they've mined to comfort them, where the law wears the white of justice and splatters it with the blood of innocence, where the leaders sit in their gilded kingdom and laugh at the trials of the unfortunate even as they heap their own flames higher, in a country where children go to die at the hands of other children while the rest of the nation cheers, in a rebellion where the cure is every bit as toxic as the disease, she is fair.


	85. Rory

**A/N:** Yesterday's chapter is the prior one, and this one's for today.

* * *

Sometimes he hates Primrose Everdeen. It's stupid, he knows. What is there to hate? She's just a lonely girl the same age as him who lost her father when he lost his. It's not her fault she's got that pretty upper-class coloring, her skin so pale he can't ever imagine it soaked in coal dust and sweat from a long day in the mines, except she'll never ever have to go down there like he will because she's got her mother's healing business to take over and she's beloved, besides. Everyone in the whole goddamn District loves her. Even him.


	86. Rue

**A/N:** Two hundred reviews?! Love y'all!

* * *

She might be young, but she's not stupid. She knows that when Katniss smiles down at her, she's picturing a girl with pale skin and blue eyes and hair down her back the color of sunshine instead of Rue's dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes. She knows that as much as Katniss wants to believe otherwise, Rue's just a projection of her desire to protect her younger sister. It hurts, knowing that, but she keeps it all locked up tight and covers her loneliness with a sweet little smile. There's no harm in pretending, just for a little while, right?


	87. Seeder

It was Rue's bread, painstakingly collected from the offerings of the people who can't even afford to eat dinner most nights, gathered with the hope of keeping their little girl alive just one more day. But she's dead now, and Seeder could have sent it to Thresh, the best tribute they've had in a dozen years, but instead she chose to send a message, a thank-you to the girl who loved her just as much as they had. _We're with Katniss_ , their gift says. _We're with the rebellion._

Onscreen, Katniss raises three fingers to the sky, and District Eleven burns.


	88. Seneca

He doesn't know their love story is a lie until the trumpets sound. The girl with her gray eyes smoldering at the sky and the boy with blood still pouring from his leg, the star-crossed lovers who had captured the Capitol's heart, they don't sink to their knees in silent, awed gratitude. They embrace each other with none of the shaky relief that he would expect from two young people in love, just quiet defiance, and he can feel the earth tremble beneath his feet. They played him, but, far worse, they played _Snow_. He almost feels sorry for them.


	89. Thom

**A/N:** Sorry for the wait! I had two chapters in a row that needed to be written and just weren't working, so I let it fall by the wayside for a little bit, seeing as school already started up again. Today I realized that one of the chapters was about a character who only appears in the Catching Fire movie, and not a particularly important one, either, so that's not going to happen. I'm glad, though, because I wrote a bonus chapter a while back and now it's an even 100 chapters! To get caught up, I could post all however-many chapters right now, but these last ones are some of my absolute favorites, so I'm going to go two-at-a-time until they're all done.

* * *

He was born in District Twelve, and like as not he'll die there, too. He thought he was going to die there when the bombs came flying through the sky and everything was ashes and flames and he watched horror-stricken from the Meadow as his home exploded into so many pieces not even the Capitol could glue it back together. But Twelve endured- the _rebellion_ endured- and now he's back home, safe at last. He wipes what he'll swear is just a drop of sweat away from his face and throws the next corpse onto the back of his cart.


	90. Thresh

**A/N:** See author's note for chapter 89 (Thom). This is the second chapter for today.

* * *

He knows he's not meant to win. These Games are the backdrop for the first romance to ever grace Panem's cameras, and he and the other tributes are just supporting characters, only there to shape the blossoming love by their rote actions, speaking their stilted lines to an audience that doesn't care. This isn't his story, and this isn't his time to win. It's never been his time to win; black boys from the outermost reaches of the nation aren't supposed to get this far, aren't supposed to _want_ to. But he's always been a little bit of a rebel.


	91. Tigris

She's a star for years upon years, blossoming in the spotlight, radiating beauty and serenity and happiness as all of her risky looks (her false eyelashes so long they brush her cheeks with tips painted the same pink as her blush, her furred garments little more than lingerie, her pores inlaid with tiny sapphires and pearls: trends she sparks before they reach the runway) leave the Capitol screaming with admiration. She didn't know it was possible to go too far, not in this city where the extreme is everyday and excess is expected, but she does, and then she's nothing.


	92. Titus

**A/N:** I think this one's my favorite of them all. Once again, this is the second of today's chapters.

* * *

"Come back to me. I don't care how, just come back." His mother's last words to him, thick with tears, fill his thoughts like a mantra, chanting and chanting until he drowns beneath their weight. He loses himself, and he's nothing like the shy little boy his mother had pleaded with, and she's watching at home with her hands over her mouth as she struggles not to vomit and she realizes that she lied, that she really does care, that she wants her baby back but not like this, never like this. She hates that she's relieved when he dies.


	93. Twill

Irregular divots in the ground mark where she knows District Thirteen hides its cameras along the border of its land. They're half a mile past the first cameras when Bonnie crashes to the ground. Her mouth moves soundlessly as she clutches at a gaping hole in her chest. Twill screams and ducks, staring upward where she knows the Capitol's hovercraft must be lurking, but there's nothing there. The Capitol isn't there at all. Horror floods her veins with ice. Slowly, she turns to look at the camera blinking red right next to her.

Two corpses lie beneath the empty sky.


	94. Unnamed Capitol Woman

**A/N:** Same deal, a two-for-one! So sorry for not responding to all of the love from yesterday- I'm trying to catch up on sleep, but thank you all so much!

* * *

There are people in her room, strange people with faces untouched by makeup, people with guns glinting at their waists and hatred in their unaltered District eyes, and she knows immediately that they're rebels. The sausage falls from her hand and hits the floor in the sudden, gaping silence. Then Katniss Everdeen, _that_ Katniss Everdeen, the girl she'd sponsored in the arena, the sweet, brave girl with the darling little sister and that fairy-tale romance, the Girl on Fire with her clothes ragged with filth and gore, shoots her. No hesitation, no remorse. She doesn't even have time to scream.


	95. Unnamed Miner

**A/N:** I've shifted the formatting since I first wrote it, but this is the face that launched a thousand ships, or, rather, the drabble that launched a hundred more.

* * *

"I'm not their slave," he spits. Burns rake down his back, blood oozing through the rough cloth of his shirt, and there's an emptiness on his face where flesh used to be, skin seared down to bone. Gunmetal scrapes against the scorched skin of his hands as he aims at her head.

"I am," the Mockingjay says.

She keeps talking, but her words fade away as clarity fills him. Oh, how she's lying; she's been lying all along. His fingers tremble with glory. Oh, how the Capitol will favor his family now.

 _I'm not their slave._

He shoots.

 _I am._


	96. Venia

**A/N:** Since we're going to continue to do this double-daily drabble thing until this project is finished (and that's only two days away, goodness gracious!), I have to suggest that y'all check out the chapter immediately preceding this one. It's the original drabble that inspired this collection and my absolute favorite. Still need sleep- will be better about responding tomorrow!

* * *

She's always had to be the strong one. Ever since Daddy left when Mama forgot to get her lips plumped one week and she wasn't the prettiest woman in the Capitol anymore, Venia's had to pull together the shards of her mother and keep their family afloat. It was hard to watch her mother sobbing into her eyeshadow and then leave for school with a smile stuck on her face, but she managed, and they survived. Well, Venia survived, at least. Mama's buried under a hundred tons of steel after the bombings ravaged the city, but Venia's faced worse before.


	97. Vick

Rory is two years older than him and never lets him forget it. "I'm the big brother here," he says proudly, puffing out his chest in an unconscious imitation of Gale. "That means I look after you." Even when Rory starts noticing pretty Primrose Everdeen down the street and stops tussling with his baby brother after school like they used to, he still watches over him and Posy. He almost cries when he hears that Rory will be taking out tesserae to keep them all fed, but his older brother just tightens his jaw and tells him, "Whatever it takes."


	98. Wiress

**A/N:** We are so close to the end, oh my goodness! Just one more day left! There's a poll up on my profile about my next project, since now that this one's practically done, I've got a bit of spare time to spend on something else.

* * *

The air in District Three crackles with electricity, buzzing like a current surging through a wire, raising the hairs on her neck. It's an off-putting sensation, one that makes their escort shudder and new Victors halfway through their Victory Tour stiffen and look for the source, but it feels like home to her. It always has. Three is factories belching smoke into the gray sky and rooms filled with half-assembled inventions and people too intelligent for small talk. Three is innovation and candor and danger and she loves every last horrible bit of it, for it reminds her of herself.


	99. Woof

He doesn't know why he's here. Doesn't he deserve to live out his final days in the gentle gray of Eight instead of this bejeweled, broken city? He's doomed, he knows that much; no way to haul himself out of the arena this time. Perhaps he'll feign senility and pull a Five from last year's Games, stuffing his mouth full of poisonous bugs at the only station that can accommodate his shaking hands, but the trainer stops him before he can grant himself the mercy of a death on his own terms. He'll just have to wait for the arena.


	100. You

**A/N:** And so it ends! I really, truly cannot believe the support I've received from this project- all of you are so sweet and encouraging and I don't even have words to express how sincerely thankful I am. Thank you all for sticking out this project with me and cheering me on- this wouldn't have been possible without you!

Because I just love to torture myself with new projects, I'm publishing the first chapter of my Glimmer-centric drabble series under the title "Make Me Your Queen". It will have 50 drabbles, each 100 words, updated daily.

Thank you all again so much! It's been a wild journey, but you all made it worth it.

* * *

Yes, you. The reader. You've followed along with these stories for a lifetime, finding yourself in Rue's vibrancy and Peeta's kindness and Katniss's courage. Perhaps you took sides in the unfolding love triangle, or maybe your thoughts never left the Careers. Maybe you delved deeper into the influences that underlaid the villains' actions. Maybe you mourned Prim's death or rebuilt yourself alongside Katniss. These stories were written for you. Claim them.

You are every bit as important as all of the other characters, for they can only tell the story. You are the one who makes it come to life.


End file.
